Somebody Help!

[Something completely different]

Lately, i have started listening to Christian music again, and i even picked up a bible and read a few pages for the first time in a long time. I feel like i am being sucked back into religion. I was just counting my CD's and i have 186 Christian albums and only 89 non-Christian albums. Any advice will be most welcome!

try some of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eShSOlhX9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhZK85bcl...re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2f1G7qCSm8

then make a eurotrip next year and visit:

[IUsedToBelieve]

Lately, i have started listening to Christian music again, and i even picked up a bible and read a few pages for the first time in a long time. I feel like i am being sucked back into religion. I was just counting my CD's and i have 186 Christian albums and only 89 non-Christian albums. Any advice will be most welcome!

try some of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3eShSOlhX9w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhZK85bcl...re=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2f1G7qCSm8

then make a eurotrip next year and visit:

Boltthrower are cool.

[Notary Public]

Listen to whatever music you like!
If you are secure in your beliefs nothing should change that.

For example, I can still read and enjoy books of the bible - for example Ecclesiastes - or read up on D&D scenarios which feature crusaders and priests chock full of Christian lore.

There's a game that just came out called Inquisition, you play as an Inquisitor who tortures heretics and smites demons in the name of God, I am an atheist but still enjoyed playing it.

There is nothing wrong with enjoying these things, OP

[Angrboda]

I was originally going to post something in concurrence with the opinions expressed here already, but something made me hold back. I would say definitely read about religion, the more you know, and all that rot. However, as a recent thread has reminded me (well, informed me, more correctly), our reactions to music aren't rational in the same way as our reactions to other things are. When someone insults a band or music you like, there is a tendency to feel insulted and hurt, to engage the shame circuits. Why this happens is not entirely clear to me (though I haven't read the research). I attended a Unitarian Universalist church for a time, and I always felt creeped out when singing the hymns; it was like I felt dirty and vulnerable. It's hard to explain. I had a theory, granted purely pulled from thin air, that ritual causes our brain's critical faculties to be put on standby, allowing otherwise objectionable material to go straight to the belief centers without passing Go. I don't believe that literally, but I have to wonder if music affects us in ways that speech and writing do not, ways that we aren't exactly conscious of. (Last night, I was thinking of how songbirds have to learn the proper song for their species, and if I recall correctly, if they don't learn it during their 'critical period', or learn it wrong, they won't be able to successfully mate. And I wonder how this intersects with the human capacity for language and music, the evolution of which I suspect is largely uncharted. I also recall that people tend to fixate on the music they listened to at a certain stage of their development (adolescence), and why I like certain music that others hate. A lot of questions for which I have no answers.)

I'd say that, like the old joke about the doctor, "If it hurts when you do this..." then don't do that.

I doubt the music will turn you onto the dark side, but then I tend to trust my intuition when it throws up a red flag, even if I don't know the reason. But then, I'm not a rational person, so I'm used to depending on my intuition. That act may be as scary to you as listening to Christian music....

[Something completely different]

Boltthrower are cool.

great! Bolt Thrower are a british Heavy Metal band, and they are one of the best. I have a very variational taste of music and listen to all kinds of things, but if you realy enjoyed Bolt Thrower i`ll give you a list of other Metal, Death Metal, Heavy Metal, Black Metal, Trash Metal, Grindcore, Trashcore and Deathcore bands.

Sodom, Darkthrone, Burzum, Hellhammer, Cannibal Corpse, Napalm Death, Dio, Napalm Death Terror, Extreme Noise Terror, After the Massacre, Amebix, Axe Grinder, Axiom, Slayer, Children of Bodom, Sepultura, Gorgoroth, Mayhem, Amon Amarth, Grave Digger, Blind Guardian, Kreator, Meshuggah, Dimmu Borgir, Behemoth, Doom, Skitsystem, Pisschrist, Dropdead, Warcollapse, Nasum, Amebix, Deviated Instinct, Detestation, Municipal Waste, Sore Throat, Caustic Christ, Insect Warfare, Kylesa, Bathory, Guided Cradle, Stormcrow, Sanctum, Skaven, Mass Grave, Hiatus, Dystopia, Instinct of Survival, Hellshock, Effigy, From Ashes Rise, Wolfbrigade,

and in the case of the band "Tragedy" i`ll post a vid since if you google that bandname it`s hard to find anything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUfip07UA...re=related

[thesummerqueen]

Listening to "Hallelujah" or other music that is religiously based or has heavy religious imagery in it hasn't bothered me a goddamn bit, mostly because I understand that song language is metaphor. Even if the original writer intended something to be a religious song, you can take it almost however you want. No one knew that shitty "Light Up My Life" song was about god for the longest time. There's a song Loreena McKennit set to music called "Dark Night of the Soul" that can either be a poem about coming to Jesus or a song about an intense love affair. Hell, people can't even agree what the Song of Songs is about - is it describing a date with God or a deeply erotic affair?

You liked the music you used to listen to because the sound appealed to you. It doesn't mean you're "falling back into god". The more you read your bible, I bet the more you find it to be bullshit. Just make sure to listen with a clear and level head. Things only have the meanings you ascribe to them. The bible and the music aren't something magical any more than my knowing how to read Tarot cards are.

[pocaracas]

Ah... a great song to go with a green ogre... I loved it the first time I heard it:







Then I hated the original version:





Same lyrics.....same christian content.... different melody... different emotion.

[thesummerqueen]

That's because you need the Jeff Buckley version. No other exists for me, except maybe Brandi Carlisle's.

[pocaracas]

I youtubed those versions.... but I still stand by Rufus' version. Something about it being the first version I ever heard. The same thing happens with every other music that has more than one version. The first is, usually, the one I like best.

There are some rare occasions where the first isn't the best.... the first time version of 1812 Overture I heard was simple, plain, nice.... then I found out it was supposed to have CANNONS! So now I can only listen to it with cannons.

Still, no excuse to go back to believing that a big sky daddy exists.

[Angrboda]

Lyrebird imitates chainsaw, car alarm, and other environmental sounds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzWEWj3JOXw

Lyrebird

A Lyrebird is either of two species of ground-dwelling Australian birds, that form the genus, Menura, and the family Menuridae. They are most notable for their superb ability to mimic natural and artificial sounds from their environment. Lyrebirds have unique plumes of neutral coloured tailfeathers.

Lyrebirds are among Australia's best-known native birds. As well as their extraordinary mimicking ability, lyrebirds are notable because of the striking beauty of the male bird's huge tail when it is fanned out in display; and also because of their courtship display.



Vocalizations and mimicry

A lyrebird's song is one of the more distinctive aspects of its behavioural biology. Lyrebirds sing throughout the year, but the peak of the breeding season, from June to August, is when they sing with the most intensity. During this peak they may sing for four hours of the day, almost half the hours of daylight. The song of the Superb Lyrebird is a mixture of seven elements of its own song and any number of other mimicked songs and noises. The lyrebird's syrinx is the most complexly-muscled of the Passerines (songbirds), giving the lyrebird extraordinary ability, unmatched in vocal repertoire and mimicry. Lyrebirds render with great fidelity the individual songs of other birds and the chatter of flocks of birds, and also mimic other animals such as koalas and dingos. The lyrebird is capable of imitating almost any sound and they have been recorded mimicking human caused sounds such as a mill whistle to a cross-cut saw, chainsaws, car engines and car alarms, fire alarms, rifle-shots, camera shutters, dogs barking, crying babies, music, and even the human voice. However while the mimicry of human noises is widely reported the extent to which it happens is exaggerated, and the phenomenon is quite unusual.

The Superb Lyrebird's mimicked calls are learned from the local environment, including from other Superb Lyrebirds. An instructive example of this is the population of Superb Lyrebirds in Tasmania, which have retained the calls of species not native to Tasmania in their repertoire, but have also added some local Tasmanian endemic bird noises. It takes young birds about a year to perfect their mimicked repertoire. The female lyrebirds of both species are also mimics, and will sing on occasion but the females do so with less skill than the males.

One researcher, Sydney Curtis, has recorded flute-like lyrebird calls in the vicinity of the New England National Park. Similarly, in 1969, a park ranger, Neville Fenton, recorded a lyrebird song which resembled flute sounds in the New England National Park, near Dorrigo in northern coastal New South Wales. After much detective work by Fenton, it was discovered that in the 1930s, a flute player living on a farm adjoining the park used to play tunes near his pet lyrebird. The lyrebird adopted the tunes into his repertoire, and retained them after release into the park. Neville Fenton forwarded a tape of his recording to Norman Robinson. Because a lyrebird is able to carry two tunes at the same time, Robinson filtered out one of the tunes and put it on the phonograph for the purposes of analysis. The song represents a modified version of two popular tunes in the 1930s: "The Keel Row" and "Mosquito's Dance". Musicologist David Rothenberg has endorsed this information.